


The Case of the Missing Detective

by alpheratz



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:20:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpheratz/pseuds/alpheratz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Criminals had apparently taken the week between Christmas and the end of the year off. This posed a serious problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Missing Detective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaitN](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaitN/gifts).



Criminals had apparently taken the week between Christmas and the end of the year off. Joan must've become used to their irregularly regular flow of cases, because by the afternoon of New Year's Eve she found herself twitching as much as Sherlock had over breakfast that morning and, honestly, every day since the end of their last case.

Clearly, working with Sherlock had its drawbacks, but she hadn't expected needing to contemplate giving up caffeine.

Regardless, it was New Year's Eve and she had a party to go to, one thrown by the most successful of her girlfriends and thus guaranteed to be fun, or at the very least to involve really good canapes. At the very, absolute minimum or your money back, she'd get to wear her new party dress, a ridiculous impulse-buy that had been glittering in the back of her closet since September. 

Joan shook the twitchiness out of her hands and ran up the steps of the brownstone, shrugging off her coat as soon as she got inside and sighing at the warm air. It's not like it was that cold out, for New York in December, but there had been a few biting gusts of wind and she was glad to be out of it. 

Sherlock wasn't immediately visible, but his shoes were kicked off by the door, so he was probably around. 

Joan draped her coat over the banister, pulled off her gloves and stuffed them in the pocket of the coat, and headed into the kitchen. 

Sherlock was, in fact, there, doing lunges as Clyde watched from a fairly risky spot about a foot away from Sherlock's legs. 

"Hey," Joan said, biting her lip on a smile.

Sherlock straightened and whirled around. "Ah! Joan. I was about to make some tea. Would you like some?"

"Sure." Joan swept Clyde off the floor and deposited him safely on the other side of the table. "Thank you."

Sherlock did up the top button of his shirt and tugged it down, turning to the stove. "I have been experimenting with your lunging technique to see if it could be adapted to alleviate symptoms of boredom as well as of exhaustion."

"Oh?"

"When you think about it, they are fairly similar, Watson. The body slows down, alertness drops, the hypothalamus activates and depresses the cerebral cortex…" Sherlock waved his hands and grabbed the boiling kettle off the stove. "Both are extraordinarily detrimental to clear thought."

"Maybe I should do some lunges before I go, then," said Joan, pushing her mug towards Sherlock and letting him drop a teabag in. Peppermint steam rose up around her face and she breathed it in. "I wouldn't want to get bored."

Sherlock grimaced and angrily blew the steam off his own tea. "Bell has been insistent that there have been no new cases this whole week. I don't believe him. This is the _precise_ time of year that people should be committing murders. I can think of no better time than the month in which families spend unusual amounts of time together while under pressure to maintain the niceties, can you? I have in the past hypothesized ways in which to murder Mycroft over Christmas pudding and get away with it, and let me tell you, they were all quite elaborate and brilliant."

Joan sipped her tea, not even trying to hide her smile. "Maybe they're all straightforward crimes. They wouldn't call you in for that."

"Call _us_ in for that."

Joan felt her smile widen and saw it reflected in Sherlock's face for a short moment before his reserve overrode it. "Would you like to come to Lalaine's party with me?"

Sherlock looked appalled. "Thank you, no. Parties are not quite my forte, Watson. Clyde and I can amuse ourselves well enough."

Joan raised an eyebrow but stood up without comment. "I'll see you tonight. Well. Tomorrow morning."

Sherlock waved at her as she headed upstairs. "I'll text you if there's a case. You may want to wear sensible shoes."

Joan certainly did not put on sensible shoes, but the nonsensible choice got a generous handful of compliments, so it was getting on eleven o'clock before she started checking her phone, time dragging slower and slower between each surreptitious dip into her clutch. 

The minutes dragged on but there were no texts from Sherlock, neither ones announcing a murder nor ones complaining about the lack of one. There _was_ champagne, which was really quite good, and Lalaine's caterer had really outdone herself with the canapes, but it wasn't a case. And somehow the lack of a case was getting to her a lot more when she was out here by herself, without having Sherlock's boredom as entertainment and an occupation.

Who said that she had to be here, anyway? Joan looked around and no one was watching her; everyone she knew was surrounded by people she didn't; and when she drew a curtain aside, covering her mouth to keep from fogging up the window, there were plenty of empty cabs driving by waiting for New Yorkers to get out of their parties. 

She hated the bloodbath for the cabs anyway. She could skip it one year. 

The brownstone was dark. Joan took care not to trip as she walked through the living room and kitchen tugging off her coat. Sherlock wasn't downstairs at all, and she didn't have to check his bedroom to know he wouldn't be asleep. She did check hers, in case he had been compelled to rearrange her closet, but her room was as intact as she had left it, the jeans and tee she'd worn to run her errands still crumpled up on the bed. 

That only left one theory and about five minutes to confirm it, which left Joan with just enough time to grab a bottle of Perrier and a couple of champagne flutes from the kitchen and carry them up to the roof without overbalancing and sending the whole thing flying. She eased the door open, as silent as she could manage, and there Sherlock was, perched on a stool in front of the beehives and fiddling with the batting he'd arranged around it to temper the harsh wind. 

The case of the missing detective, open and shut. Maybe it wasn't the most diverting, but it would do.

"How're they doing?" Joan asked softly, coming up behind him. 

Sherlock didn't flinch, which meant he'd predicted her arrival, which was both annoying and kind of breathtaking at the same time. "They're not losing too much weight and your bee appears to have gone into hibernation perfectly. I'm optimistic."

Joan leaned in to look at the sleeping bee Sherlock was pointing at. "That's nice, them here with us for the new year."

Sherlock seemed to have just taken notice of the champagne flutes and the water. "Let me help you with that, Watson."

Joan let him operate the screwtop and set the flutes carefully on the ledge of the hive. Sometime since she got home, it had started snowing, barely but enough that a few flakes landed on the rim of the glasses and on her bare shoulders, chilling her as they melted out of proportion to their size. She shivered and Sherlock made a frantic face, pulling off his jacket and wrapping it around her. 

"You look nice, Watson," he said, hilariously gruff, and poured the sparkling water into the glasses. 

"Thanks," Joan said quietly. She'd forgotten her phone in her clutch downstairs, but the quiet streets were an obvious sign that they hadn't missed midnight. "The party was fun."

"I'm glad you had a good time." Sherlock cleared his throat. "Bell called. He's bringing us a case to consult on. He can be quite nice."

Joan couldn't stop her smile and for the second time that day, Sherlock grinned back at her.

There came a muffled cheer from next door, and then an avalanche of firecrackers went off, one after another, giddy. Joan tilted her flute at Sherlock and he clinked his against it, sealing the year, starting a new page.


End file.
